Bob Odenkirk has been making the talk show rounds in advance of this Sundays premire. He was on Kimmel last night , Kelly and Michael this morning.

He said that he's basically a husband and father so when people come up to him and say ," I love your work".....What ? Shopping ? Doing the dishes ?

On Kimmel he showed a hilarious clip that he made. He said that he had been a writer (SNL), comedian, and character actor, for so long that he didn't realize that he was the star of Saul until he saw the first episode , watching at home.

The clip showed him sitting on his couch in his underwear and robe holding a big bowl of popcorn. As the scenes of Saul played out he became agitated and couldn't handle the realization that he was the star so he switched over to American Pickers.

Kimmel asked, "What's American Pickers ?" The studio audience gasped. How could anyone who considers themselves an American not know what American Pickers is ? Just goes to show how TV hosts who consider themselves so cool and knowledgeable about popular culture, are really out to lunch on the important things.

So Bob says, "I'll show you clip". So he goes back to showing him watching AP on the couch and the guys are bidding on a big plastic duck, looked like it came off an amusement park ride. One guy wins the bidding. Bob is so excited. He yells, "Wife ! Kids ! Look ! He won the duck !" And he throws the bowl in the air, popcorn flying every where.

This morning on Kelly he said that he almost didn't take the role because he lives in LA and he would be away from his kids for months. But his son (15 at the time, daughter 13) said, "We'll be okay". So he took it and they did do fine.

He did a good shout out for Albq. ..."I love the place".

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Home / Blogs / The Culture BlogBetter Call Saul Review: The Last Hurrah of Difficult MenThe Saul Goodman series starts out already better than Breaking Bad.

By Stephen Marche on January 21, 2015

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Note: This review contains mild spoilers for the first episode of the show.

The third golden age of television, which may or may not be coming to an end, has been defined largely by the male antiheroes: self-pitying schlubs trying to survive in a world of decay. This was the working theory of Brett Martin's book Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution, and while Martin was explicitly trying to connect the central characters of the shows with the difficult men who created them, his argument largely holds up just on the evidence provided onscreen. Tony Soprano. Don Draper. Walter White. Almost everybody in The Wire. All of these men exist in the same spiritual state: They are all trying to preserve a sense of masculine virtue in a declining America that values them less and less.

In a recent essay in The New York Times Magazine, Lili Loofbourow has made the case that that era of television, with its collapsing masculinity, is itself collapsing. In shows like Orange Is the New Black, Transparent, and Getting On, female creators are producing a new kind of televisual narrative, in which women, collectively, figure out ways to survive the collapse surrounding them. It's altogether a more positive, less dark, experience, and much less focused on the agonies and weaknesses of individual characters. "If The Sopranos started the age of the antiheroes," Loofbourow writes, "these shows mark the dawn of promiscuous protagonism: a style of television that, rather than relying on the perspective of one (usually twisted) character, adopts a wild, roving narrative sympathy." The misanthropy is replaced by a sense of hope; the self-pity by perseverance.

Loofbourow's argument makes a lot of sense, I think. The television of difficult men is ending. Walter White is dead. Tony Soprano is... well, he's something. And we'll find out the end of Don Draper soon enough. But the television of difficult men will have at least one great last hurrah, and that is Better Call Saul, which premieres February 8 on AMC.

I'll just say it: The first few episodes that I saw are better than Breaking Bad. They are smarter. They are sharper. I have never seen a prequel handled so cleverly. What we know from the previous series about Saul Goodman, or James McGill as he is known in Better Call Saul, provides a kind of counterintuitive suspense mechanism. In the very first shot, in silent black and white, we see the ruins of Saul Goodman after the action of Breaking Bad, just as he said he would be. He's working at a Cinnabon in a mall, terrified of anyone slightly threatening who walks into the store. The question for the plot is: How did he become this way? How did he fail so catastrophically?

Other familiar characters from Breaking Bad make quiet appearances, no doubt to blow up later, but Saul is absolutely the focus of the show—an antihero in the established antiheroic mode but maybe even a better lens than his predecessors for examining the breakdown of contemporary masculinity. The other shows from the difficult-men period of television were extreme examples of the state of decline: the gangster who has seen the gangster code erode, the ad executive watching the shuddering transformation of the 1960s, the chemistry teacher who takes up meth. They were symbols. But Saul Goodman (sorry, James McGill) is much more representative of the real decline than those icons. He's a lawyer who can't make a living honestly, a fate that is known to many real people. A job that once guaranteed a middle-class existence has left him hanging onto his shitty car and sleeping in a foldout bed in his office. Plenty of Americans can relate to that.

The opening courtroom scene of Better Call Saul could not be more perfect. McGill's first words are "Oh, to be nineteen again," which serve as a kind of a bracket to Tony Soprano's line from the first episode of The Sopranos: "Lately, I'm getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over." What was tragedy for Tony, McGill plays out as farce. It turns out that Saul's description of "youthful exuberance" is in defense of a group of teenagers who have gone into a morgue, cut off the head of a corpse, and fucked it.

So Saul does not begin as a good man who falls. He begins as a man doing whatever he has to do to survive, and we are called to watch the last shreds of his dignity and sense of self-worth dissolve, along with any residual morality.

In Loofbourow's essay, there is a sense that maybe it is best for all these self-pitying men to go away, and for them to be replaced by the more cheerful groups of suffering women: "Above all, promiscuous protagonism is interested in truths that are collectively produced. Its greatness stems not from a single show runner's bleak and brilliant outlook but from a collaborative vision of art that admits a spectrum of shades. The central question driving this movement forward is no longer 'How did these mad men come to be?' but rather 'How did these women get so good at staying sane?'"

I take her point, but Better Call Saul provides a hell of a counter-example. "How did these mad men come to be?" is still a gripping place to begin a television series. The first two episodes of Saul will air on consecutive nights, and I can't imagine that anyone who sees the first will miss the second. I'm already desperate for more than AMC has let me see, and no one has even mentioned meth yet.

Better Call Saul may be on the declining slope of the story of the decline of men. As it turns out, there couldn't be a better place for it.

For five seasons, she watched the journey of Walter White play out along with the millions of viewers as the show went from cult status to a mainstream juggernaut.

Like others, she is waiting to see how the prequel, “Better Call Saul,” will go over with audiences when it premieres at 8 p.m. Sunday and Monday on AMC. But this time she has more at stake – she stars in the show.

“It is a bit scary to know that the pressure is on,” she says. “I do think that this show stands on its own. Even if you’ve never seen ‘Breaking Bad,’ you’d still get this show. The story unfolds with each episode and we were part of that process. We didn’t learn much more other than what was in the script.”‘Better Call Saul’ viewing partiesHere are a few viewing parties:

The Local Brewhouse, 9800 Montgomery NE, Suite 3, will host a viewing party on both Sunday and Monday. The building was used as Saul Goodman’s office in “Breaking Bad.” Chama River Brewing Company, 4939 Pan American Freeway NE, viewing party starts at 8 p.m. Sunday. “Better Call Saul” filmed a portion of an episode in the building, which will air later this season. Lounge 54, 54 Jemez Dam Road in Santa Ana Pueblo, will host a viewing party at 8 p.m. Sunday. This is a 21-and-over event.

“Breaking Bad,” the story of chemistry-teacher-turned-meth-dealer Walter White, was filmed in Albuquerque, elevating the city’s profile among millions of fans across the world.

“Better Call Saul,” also filmed in Albuquerque, takes place six years prior to “Breaking Bad” and follows the transformation of Jimmy McGill from an unsuccessful lawyer into Saul Goodman, an ace attorney for the criminal element.

Seehorn, 42, from Virginia Beach, Va., plays Kim Wexler, who is a smart and hardworking lawyer with an ambitious two-year plan. She is the female lead alongside Bob Odenkirk, who reprises his role as Goodman.

She has worked her way up from humble beginnings to become one of the go-to litigators at the fictitious firm of Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill.

“Kim is Jimmy’s confidante,” she says. “He tells her everything and their relationship builds over the course of the show.”

Seehorn recently got a chance to see the first episode at the Los Angeles premiere.

“Even if I wasn’t in it, it’s exciting to see,” she says. “I was nervous because the show is an origin story about a beloved character. I didn’t want to drive the car off into the ditch because we were doing our own thing with the show.”

Seehorn can’t give too much away about the show, but she hints that several original characters make appearances in the new show.Bob Odenkirk reprises his role as Saul Goodman in the "Breaking Bad" prequel, "Better Call Saul." (Ben Leuner/Courtesy of AMC)

Bob Odenkirk reprises his role as Saul Goodman in the “Breaking Bad” prequel, “Better Call Saul.” (Ben Leuner/Courtesy of AMC)

“If you’ve followed ‘Breaking Bad,’ you will see these characters,” she says. “Pay attention to many of those.”

The TV series began production in June and was housed at Albuquerque Studios. Like “Breaking Bad,” many of the scenes are shot at various locations throughout the city.

According to the New Mexico Film Office, the production employed at least 75 to 90 New Mexico crew members and hundreds of extras. Each episode, which takes eight days to shoot, brings in a direct spend of $1 million.

Production took six months, and producers had to deal with Mother Nature and monsoon season.

Seehorn moved to Albuquerque and rented an adobe casita, which allowed her to delve deep into Wexler’s character.

“First off, I loved monsoon season and I didn’t know it was a thing outside of Asia,” she says. “I’m sure it drove production crazy but when there was a monsoon, we didn’t shoot and I got to spend time at home and just be by myself. I was learning who Kim was and who she’s becoming.”

Seehorn says the monsoons also added to the ambiance of the show.Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman and Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler in the new series "Better Call Saul." (Ursula Coyote/Courtesy of AMC)

Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman and Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler in the new series “Better Call Saul.” (Ursula Coyote/Courtesy of AMC)

“It kind of matched the show that we’re trying to create,” she says. “The weather was like the changing landscape of the characters. It was awesome.”

Seehorn admits to being a fangirl when seeing the famous “Breaking Bad” locations in Albuquerque while she filmed the new TV show.

She would randomly see them during her down time.

“I didn’t realize until my third time eating at The Grove that it was actually where Lydia was in the final episodes,” she says with a laugh. “Then while driving to and from set, I would see the carwash and just be amazed. It was like I was in the show the whole time.”

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A viewing and Saul-utations at Chama River Brewing Company

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I think it's going to fly ! The long shot showing where Mike's ticket booth is was weird. I think the booth was fake. It looked like they put it right up against the south side of an I-40 onramp when of course the real booth was downtown in the municipal parking structure which is where they filmed the scene of Saul trying to get out of the parking garage and Mike says he owes $3.

There was one 'logistics' problem; When the woman drove away from her house at "Holiday Park", a subdivision up near Tramway and I-40, Saul calls the skateboarders and says "2 minute alert". She would have had to drive 9-10 miles on surface streets and I-40 to make it downtown to 7th and Tijeras (Spanish for "scissors", in case you wondered), in 2 minutes, good luck with that !

There was one 'unplanned' "funny" scene. Not 'ha-ha' funny more like ironic funny. When the woman took off after hitting the skate boarder, both they and Saul were surprised and outraged. But that's the standard outcome in almost any accident in Albq. where the vehicle is still operational after the 'accident'. Hit and run is so common that everyone assumes it will happen. Only if the vehicle(s) are too wrecked to drive will they remain at the scene until the cops arrive. Weird, but that's the way it is. Of course the cops almost always find them.....

The scenes down at 7th and Tijeras were interesting. That's right on the west side of the downtown area.

The Lush Cafe. The big yellow sign wasn't there. Either they didn't want to give the owner that much publicity or he had taken it down earlier.... The people that run the Breaking Bad bus tours (in an RV like Walt and Jessie used) is already planning on adding BCS scenes to their tours, so Lush may be getting more customers in the future.

Saul referenced Kit Carson elementary school as to where the woman they were going to scam, was going to pick up her kids. This is not the school. Kit Carson is way down in the south valley. Why they would reference it is a mystery.

While surfing around finding that, I noticed that Ron Bell's law office is right across the street. He specializes in suing car accidents, drunks especially, and advertizes on TV all the time. It wouldn't be fair to call him a shyster lawyer but his persona in his TV ads is about as close as a real lawyer could come to coming across like Saul.

And he doesn't have a good reputation among other professional businesses in town. Years ago when one of my friends was still operating his commercial plumbing business he won a bid to do some plumbing work at Ron's office, $20K worth. When he tried to get paid Ron said he wouldn't pay, and because he knew how to circumvent the "mechanics lien" law which normally would allow for the business to be paid for services, my friend never did get his $20K. Is that pretty close to a shyster ?

I'm not too familiar with nail salons/beauty shops around town.....sorry.... so it may take awhile to figure out where Saul's office is , in the back of that salon, although I suspect that customers of it will come forward pretty soon...

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What that tells us is that it is in the first block north or south of Central Ave., but doesn't narrow down the E-W area. If the 106 indicated an E-W address that would be within the first block off Broadway on a cross street somewhere along its length and that wouldn't be a good location for a beauty shop, north or south. I'm guessing that it is further east, on one of the major N-S streets such as Louisiana, San Mateo, San Pedro, etc. none of which I frequent very often that close to Central, but there are many strip stores along those streets N-S of Central. But it isn't as far east as Wyoming, Eubank, or Juan Tabo because I do go on those streets near Central once in awhile and there aren't nearly as many 'strip stores' near Central.

In one scene where Saul goes in the front door there was a glimpse of a tall white sign out front but I couldn't read what was on it.

One thing I could do is search all Albq. beauty shops, there are a lot but I could eliminate most of them by address. I'll do that later, dentist appt. shortly....

Have searched 953 salon addrs. in online directory and found only one with a 106 address, and it was a small bikini wax business in a house. It's possible that they altered the addr. on the door to confound searches. If so, that would complicate matters beyond a practical search. However, if we think like a production designer would think then we can assume that the alteration would be such that it can be quickly added and removed without disturbing the original addr. This means adding "blanks" before or after the 106 that wouldn't be easily detected on camera. Thinking that way, I have several other addrs. to investigate.

Anyway, thanks Berry for pointing out the 106 in the first place. This qualifies you as a member in the Powerful and Influential Member of the Viewer Class, such as myself. This gives you enormous prestige in academia but has little pecuniary compensation, zero to be exact.

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Oops ! Berry, the address is 160, not 106. That clears things up quite a bit. We know that Saul's addr. is 160 Juan Tabo NE, I posted pics of that addr. earlier but didn't consider that he could be in one of the buildings on the far east side of the empty lot. Google Earth camera cars rarely drive off public streets so we can't get a closeup of those businesses.

The sight line to the sign from inside the store is probably correct although the sign appears bigger than you'd expect given the distance to it. That may be explained by the type of lens they were using on the camera. But the sign sure appears closer than .08 miles. That's the only thing that's weird......

So the salon is in one of those buildings at the top of the picture. The Family Dollar store is closed, on the right, as is a bingo parlor on the left so the salon probably moved into it or one of the other stores on the left.

It makes sense that the salon would be at the same addr. in reality as Saul's office. And by being back off the street it won't cause traffic problems from tourists/gawkers trying to find it. Incidentally all the beauticians are Asians and are no doubt real employees. It would make no sense to try to cast Asian extras when there is a real supply of them already in place. The customers in the chairs are probably extras. Paying a real customer to appear on camera, and they might not want to anyway, would make no sense. I watched both eps on the AMC site in order to get those interior pics. It's free and no sign up required but you can't fast forward through the commercials.

So I think we've nailed the location and are probably the only fan/non-show people who know where it is, at the moment. The only thing left for me to do is drive over there and take a pic right outside the salon. Then we'll know the name. They probably didn't put a fake name outside unless in later episodes it shows an exterior view of the shop. But of course that sign will be long gone.

Might go over tomorrow, have to have a tooth pulled on Thursday...

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I see his name in the credits and wondered who he is. He plays one of Tuco's "boys", and is the guy that came to Saul and made the proposition of ripping off the law firm for the million. The reason I was interested is that his last name is the same fake one I use on Facebook. Hopefully no problems if someone thinks I'm related and privy to show secrets.... ....which of course I am.....snicker.

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I got to thinking later that I made a lot of extra work for myself by jumping to the conclusion that the salon wouldn't be physically located at 160 Juan Tabo just because the businesses were back off the street. Of course Saul's office is a set at Albq. Studios. No doubt there is a real storage room at the back of the salon but of course they couldn't/wouldn't turn it into an office. Also, the office door as seen from the outside when Saul unlocks it is also part of the studio set. The water cooler is part of the real salon because we saw the interior in the back ground when Saul bent down to get a drink. It could belong to the salon or the prod. design dept. could have added it for that shot.

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The ending was "funny". First Saul goes through the back gate of the missing family's house which is right up against the foothills east of Tramway Blvd. There are a lot of houses like that north and south along the foothills. That particular house is further south nearer the south end of the Sandia mntns. , nearer I-40. We can tell that by the ridge seen in the background as Saul first starts walking on the trail (there are many of those up there. Because of the way the scenes were cut/edited we can't tell if where Saul was walking after going through the gate was actually right behind the house.....probably not.)

So he walks for a long time, apparently toward the top of the ridge. But then suddenly the scene changes and we see a low level shot of him walking across a dried mud-cracked area toward a stand of Cottonwood trees and immediately we know he's down in the Bosque, the Cottonwood 'forest' that grows along both banks of the Rio Grande. They only grow down in the valley because they need a lot of water. So suddenly the family is hiding 12-13 miles west of where he first started looking for them. At least he finds the million $ which they took with them....smart.

A round trip by bike from my house to the south end of the trail (south of the airport) is 62 km, I've ridden it many times and any place along it wouldn't be a good place to hide because of all the "traffic". They rousted out a homeless tent camp some years back.

Also, earlier we see that the beauty salon has a big aquarium. I was too far away from the front window when I took those pics in the daytime to notice it. It almost makes me want to go down there at night and take a pic right through the window so it would show up. Anyway...since they shot more scenes inside the parlor and probably more to come, the Vietnamese lady that rents or leases that space probably made out pretty good. One day filming there would pay her more than she would probably make in most of a week from regular customers.

And we learn that Mike used to be in the Philly PD. I wonder how long it will be before Saul hires him to be his 'muscle'.

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They've gotten a lot of use out of the beauty parlor so far, probably more to go until Jimmy becomes Saul and he gets his own office. The little strip store where he had his office (exterior) could be used again I guess but the strip has been changed since then so don't know if they'd go there.

It's easy to see how they can use the beauty parlor for those night interior shots. It's out of direct view from the street and no one would have any reason to drive into that nearly deserted "shopping center", which it never really ever was. So by keeping the lighting low and the camera out of sight, no one would notice that anything was going in inside.

Not so last night's scenes at the billboard. The Journal published pics of the stunt double dangling off the walk way when those scenes were shot. . As luck would have it today I had to go on one of my rare trips past that billboard. I could tell from the shots on the show where it was. Of course today Jimmy's sign was long gone. I think a bank was up.....It's located on the NW corner of the intersection of Mountain Av. with the I-25 southbound frontage road. There is a big parking lot below and to the north of the bill board but because of the camera angles they used none of that was visible. Going west on Mountain from that point for ~3 miles will take you past all the museums on the north side of Old Town.

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So now we learn that Mike had a son who was a cop and was killed on the job. And he is on the lookout for the killer...or at least that's what I got from the preview for next week.

But one scene that got me lol, was when Jimmy was waiting for the elderly lady to come down the stairs on her motorized chair. It was very slow, then she toddles over to the table slowly. The whole scene was just amusing to me, for some reason. Why would I laugh at a semi-invalid ? I don't know....

Meanwhile they sure got a lot of mileage out of those night shots in the beauty parlor. We will miss it when Jimmy/Saul gets his permanent office.

Some of those scenes of the exterior of the lady's house were taken in the Ridge Crest neighborhood the first upscale neighborhood to be built outside the downtown area. It has several innovative homes built in the late 30's- early 40's. It's just south of the airport, not as desirable now, noise-wise, as it was back in the day.

I thought the lady was funny because she didn't want Jimmy/Saul to get up and come to her. She said she'd be "right there"...and then it took her such a long time. Then when she offered to get up to make him tea...we all felt his panic at possible being trapped while she snail paced that!